


A Heartfelt Holiday

by Paganpunk2



Category: Father Brown (2013)
Genre: Affection, Body Exploration, First Kiss Flashback, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hand & Finger Kink, Homosexuality, Light Angst, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Mild Kink, Morning Cuddles, Mystery, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pigs, Presents, Scones, Sensory Memory, Surprises, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff, adorableness, first Valentine's Day, relationship discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:07:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29267703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paganpunk2/pseuds/Paganpunk2
Summary: Sullivan has a mystery to solve if he wants to be on time to his first Valentine's Day with Sid.  Will the things he learns along the way convince him that the holiday isn't as shallow as he's always thought?
Relationships: Sid Carter/Inspector Sullivan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	1. The Gift of A Mystery

**Author's Note:**

> It's Valentine's week! To mark the holiday made for shippers, this story will update daily through completion on Friday. It will then be followed by an unrelated, but still flufftastic and Valentine's-themed, piece on Saturday. Happy reading!

“Sorry, sir,” said Sergeant Goodfellow when he rounded the corner and found Sullivan making tea in the station’s cramped kitchen. “I was going to offer you a fresh cup once the water was ready.”

Sullivan waved his apology off. “It’s fine. I needed to stretch my legs. But thank you.”

Goodfellow lingered. “...Any plans for tomorrow evening?”

“Tomorrow evening?” Sullivan let his eyebrows knit, then sighed. “Don’t tell me Lady Felicia’s called with an invitation to another of her soirees.”

“No, sir. It’s just that tomorrow’s St. Valentine’s Day, and...well, you’ve been in good spirits all afternoon. I thought maybe you had arrangements with someone special.”

“Oh. Yes. Valentine’s Day...no, I haven’t any plans.” It might have been prudent to add that he didn’t have anyone special, either, but he couldn’t bear to carry his lie that far. Besides, what he’d already said was more of a half-truth than a falsity. He and Sid _did_ have plans for tomorrow; Sullivan just didn’t know what they were yet.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Goodfellow’s words were so sincere that for one mad second Sullivan was tempted to confide in him. Not the whole truth, of course, but at least the small fact that he had someone to share the romantic holiday with. Eventually, though, that small fact would have to be built onto with either a break-up or the production of a woman. Since there was no woman and the last thing in the world that Sullivan wanted was a break-up, he held his tongue.

“Do you have plans, Sergeant?” he asked instead. “A nice meal out with your wife, or...something?” Sullivan had had no experience with Valentine’s Day since he was still in school, but it was difficult to live in the world and not have a basic idea of how to mark the event. Meals, flowers, chocolate...ugh. Most of the usual rites struck him as transitory, which wasn’t what love was supposed to be.

“We have a little tradition,” Goodfellow shared with a soft smile. “You see, I proposed on Valentine’s Day. It wasn’t the popular thing then that it is now, Valentine’s Day, but the missus has always loved it. She likes to recreate the memory of that night when I asked her to be my wife. She’ll make the same roast and sides we had for dinner then, and we’ll have a little glass of whisky in front of the radio after. Used to be in front of the fireplace, but that was closed up when we put the central heat into the house.

“The rest of the bottle is my gift from her, and though I can’t top a proposal of marriage, I get her something nice from the same shop in Cheltenham that did her ring. She’s always happy with that. Says it makes her feel like a teenager again, getting jewelry for Valentine’s Day, and seeing her giddy like she gets makes me feel my own age a bit less, too.”

Meeting Sullivan’s surprised gaze, Goodfellow’s expression grew slightly abashed. “I'm sorry if that was more information than you were looking for, Inspector. But you can see why I’m sad to hear that you don’t have plans tomorrow yourself. Spent with the right person, it’s a very fine holiday.”

“So it seems.” It was patently obvious to anyone who saw them together that the Goodfellows were as much in love as they’d ever been, but Sullivan would never have guessed at their having such an undeniably sweet routine for Valentine’s Day. “That all sounds, ah, lovely.”

“Yes, sir. Perhaps next year you and some lucky young lady can start a tradition of your own.”

“Yes, maybe so.” Forget next year; Sullivan wanted to start something like what the Sergeant had just so fondly illustrated within the next thirty-six hours, and not with ‘some lucky young lady.’ Sid, he thought as he picked up his cup and swapped places with Goodfellow, had better hurry up and let him know when and where they were meeting...

* * *

“...That sneaky little brat,” Sullivan breathed out affectionately a minute later. The package that was occupying the seat of his desk chair certainly hadn’t been there when he’d left to make his tea. Unless Flambeau was back in town there was no one other than Sid around who would think it was a lark to slip past half the station just to deliver a gift, and there was no reason for the former to be bringing Sullivan presents anyway.

Besides, it was a safe bet that Flambeau would have saved the single long-stemmed rose atop the package for a certain Countess. As to where Sid had acquired such an exquisite bloom – and it really did look to be perfect, though Sullivan was no expert – it had to have come from that same peeress’ conservatory. The only question was whether or not Lady Felicia knew that he’d snipped it.

Sullivan put his tea down on the desk and closed his office door. The rose ought to have water, but after the conversation he’d just had with Sergeant Goodfellow he didn’t dare put it on display. He made to set it aside, then paused.

Sid often jokingly referred to him as a ‘man of destination.’ Sullivan had enough scruples to prevent himself from trying to justify extreme means with the ends they brought, but it was no exaggeration to say that his focus was always on the conclusion. He liked to feel that he was making progress, getting somewhere, ticking off boxes on the checklist to success.

His boyfriend – the label made Sullivan want to squeal like some foolish schoolgirl, even when he could only think it to himself – was the opposite. Sid liked a sense of movement, but he didn’t need to get anywhere for the motion to satisfy him. A pointless walk through the woods or around the village made him as happy as a stack of completed forms made Sullivan. Happier, he’d claimed when the comparison had come up a few trysts back, because on a ramble he could stop and literally smell the roses.

It wasn’t as if Sullivan had never smelled a rose before, and he understood the metaphor perfectly well. But understanding and _understanding_ were two different things. At least, that was what Father Brown had said midway through his third glass of Lady Felicia’s Christmas punch. Six weeks ago, Sullivan had written the comment off as the half-drunk philosophy of a man who was usually far more loquacious. Today, though, he wondered if there was a good reason why everyone else had agreed with the priest.

He lifted the flower towards his face, closed his eyes, and took a slow, deep breath. It smelled good; dewy, fresh, clean. Very nice. Very...rosy. Grimacing, he shook his head and opened his eyes again. He still didn’t get it. But at least he’d tried, which was more than he would have willingly done at this time last year.

Perhaps he’d have more success with the package. It was fairly flat, and small enough to sit easily in his palm, but it felt dense. Sullivan loosened the maroon ribbon that had been tied around it and undid the thick, creamy paper below.

“What...” There was another layer of paper, this time a pale pink. On it had been written five words in the flowing, feminine-looking script that Sid used to disguise the source of anything relationship-related he wrote to Sullivan. “Every layer gets you closer,” the Inspector read in a murmur. But how many layers could there be? The package wasn’t large to begin with; there simply wasn’t much room for layer upon layer of paper _and_ a gift, unless it was a minuscule one.

He kept going. Two more white sheets came away, followed by another pink one. “I’ll bet you can’t wait to see what’s inside.” Now there was an understatement. He’d already been eager to know what Sid had crept into his office to leave, but as the gift shrank in size and the mystery deepened his interest swelled even further. “Go on,” read the paper two layers below, “don’t give up now...”

Two piles began to grow on Sullivan’s desk, one blank, one bearing notations. “Hard to go through this, I know, but...” But what? Another pair of white pages, then the answer. “Trust me, it’s worth it.”

Sullivan sighed. He was sure it _would_ be worth it, but it was driving him up the wall a bit. The next message didn’t help matters. “The answer’s right in front of you.” He glared at the stacks he'd made. If they contained the answer, he was blind to it.

And the cheeky bastard had known he would be. “Or don’t you see it yet?” The Inspector scowled through two more blank sheets. “Might as well keep on, you’re more than halfway.”

His hands stilled as he read those words. He’d better be more than halfway, because he was starting to run out of package to open. The carefully folded layers kept peeling off, limiting what could be concealed by them. Was there even anything inside at all?

There must be something. Sid was a tease, but he wasn’t really a prankster, and he certainly wasn’t cruel. There was a solution in here somewhere; Sullivan just had to find it.

“Obviously, you’re frustrated.” Jesus Christ. Sullivan put the latest paper down atop the pink pile and gazed around his office. This was starting to feel like sleight of hand. It was as if Sid had secreted himself somewhere nearby to watch and was writing each note from a distance just before he got to it. That was impossible, of course, but it was uncanny how he’d known that frustration would be _exactly_ what Sullivan was feeling at this point in the proceedings.

“Remember, getting there’s half the fun.” Oh, he’d just had to slip that in, hadn’t he? Sid’s constant refrain. Slow down, we’ve got hours, you don’t have to be done and tucking yourself back into your trousers five minutes after you get here. Have a drink, stay for dinner, stay the night. Draw it out, cuddle up, savor it. And Sullivan wanted to do all those things, but it was hard when both his natural inclinations and the demands of safety had always pushed him towards quick and dirty liaisons before. Fulfill your physical needs, then move on. No lingering. No love.

But that didn’t work when it came to Sid. Sullivan had known from the beginning that this was different. Annoyingly, aggravatingly different. “Rage-inducing little puzzle, this is,” he read, and agreed on more counts than one. Still, he wouldn’t give it up for the world.

“Onto the clue yet?” He wasn’t, but his ire was cooling. The neat little tucks that held each sheet in place drove him to think about the hands that had made them. Every time he thought he knew all the things that those clever fingers were capable of, they presented some new trick. It had been with them in mind that he’d purchased his Valentine’s Day gift for Sid. At this rate, though, he was never going to figure out when and where to give it to him.

Especially since he’d reached what appeared to be his final clue. “Well, here you are at the end.” At the end, but still miles from finished. Damn it, he hated this incomplete feeling. It was the same way he felt when he first dumped a puzzle out of its box; all the pieces were there, but none of them yet fit together. Only when he could finally start to line edges up and see the picture come into focus did the tension the jumble caused him evaporate.

At least in this instance there was a consolation prize. The last note had been wrapped around a tiny waxed-paper envelope. Sullivan opened the flap and tilted it upside-down over his hand. His eyes widened as the contents fell out, flashing in the light.

The uninitiated would have assumed that the key belonged to a bank deposit box or a personal safe. Such natural assumptions would let it blend in seamlessly on his key ring. But Sullivan had seen another copy of this key in action more than once, and he knew that it unlocked the door of Sid’s caravan.

That was the where of Valentine’s Day sorted, then, not to mention being an absolutely precious gift in and of itself. But when?

There was, he realized belatedly, a narrow strip of paper sticking out of the waxy envelope. Still clutching the key, he unfolded this last hint. “Maybe you should look at the beginning again...”

Not terribly useful. He’d just been through all the notes, and they hadn’t helped him in the least. Starting over with them wasn’t likely to make a difference.

He didn’t want to give up and ask for the answer, but he wanted to miss his date with Sid far less. If he could find the other man, maybe he could wheedle another clue out of him. Standing up, Sullivan swept the pink pages into a drawer and threw the white ones into the bin. Then he frowned, pulled them back out, and added them to the drawer, too. They were blank, but it was probably best to hold onto them until he knew that they weren’t important. It would be just like his luck for the empty pages, not the ones with writing on them, to be the ones that mattered.

“Heading out, Inspector?” Sergeant Goodfellow asked as Sullivan left his office and turned towards the station’s front door.

Right. He’d gotten so caught up in the riddle of his gift that he’d briefly forgotten that he needed an excuse to talk to his own boyfriend in public. “Simon Barnes’ chicken,” he blurted out. “It’s still missing, isn’t it?”

“So far as I know it is, yes, sir. But it’s probably wandered into the woods and been eaten, just like the last one was.”

Goodfellow was almost certainly correct. Simon Barnes forgot to close the door to his chicken coop about once a fortnight, and he always claimed theft rather than admitting his error. But it was the best excuse to accost Sid that Sullivan could come up with on the fly. “Yes, well,” he blustered, “we do have a reputation to keep up, Sergeant. I could use some air anyway; I’ll make a few inquiries while I’m out.”

“All right, Inspector.” Goodfellow’s wince was audible in his response. No one to spend Valentine’s Day with and chasing after a chicken that had likely gotten itself murdered by a hungry fox; Sullivan must seem like a pitiable fool this afternoon. Oh, well. He could worry about correcting that impression later. For now, he had a fast-expiring mystery to deal with.


	2. Clueless

He found them crossing the churchyard towards the presbytery, hustling through a cold drizzle. Marking his approach, Mrs. McCarthy waved him towards the house. “Come inside,” she instructed as she bustled past. “Before we all catch our deaths.”

Father Brown smiled from where he was following in the parish secretary’s wake. “Don’t mind our rush,” he said when Sullivan fell into pace two umbrella radii from him. “We’ve been in the church since lunch, and even with the heat on high one gets chilled after a while at this time of year. But the weather does offer an excellent reason to break off for an early tea. You’ll join us, won’t you, Inspector?”

“I...actually, I was looking for-”

“Of course the Inspector will join us,” Mrs. McCarthy said briskly from just inside the presbytery door. “I had to use store-bought preserved strawberries instead of my own in the scones I made this morning, and I know neither you nor Sidney will say a word against them despite the less-than-ideal ingredients. I need an opinion from someone who will take the time to taste them instead of simply inhaling the first one and then looking around for the next half-dozen.”

“She has a point,” the priest said as he shook off his umbrella and stepped out of the rain. “I like to think that I have a decently discerning palate for most things, but Mrs. McCarthy’s scones are so delicious that I do tend to imitate Sid in my devouring of them.”

“‘Devouring’ is exactly the right word,” the woman said. “I find it difficult to believe that either one of you can taste them at all, as fast as they vanish.”

She was grousing, but Sullivan detected a hint of pride in Mrs. McCarthy’s tone. It was understandable – her strawberry scones were award-winning for a reason. That enticement aside, staying would likely bring his quarry straight to him. He couldn’t imagine Sid missing a presbytery tea at which fresh scones were on offer. “Well, if you think you’d find my opinion helpful...”

He’d sat in this kitchen on several previous occasions, but it still felt awkward to him. This was his own fault, Sullivan knew. He’d never been able to really relax in other peoples’ spaces, even when it was obvious that he was welcome. The fact that he got almost no practice at social calling didn’t help matters any. He went into plenty of houses and offices as part of his job, yes, but that was different. No one wanted an investigating policeman to make himself at home.

The only exception to his discomfort, he realized as he sat down and his keys shifted in his pocket, was the caravan. He could see himself using the gift Sid had given him, could imagine himself unlocking the door, walking in, and feeling just as relaxed as he would in his own sitting room. Even if he was alone, there was enough of the other man in evidence in the compact space to call up the easy way they had when they were in private together. Perhaps if he could find little pieces of Sid here, too, he could get rid of some of the nervous strain that was making his shoulders tight.

Mrs. McCarthy provided him with assistance almost immediately. As Sullivan and Father Brown took up places at the table, she frowned at the jacket that had been left draped on the back of one of the empty chairs. “I thought Sidney took this with him when he left after breakfast? He wore it down this morning, I know.”

Father Brown considered it. “It wasn’t raining when he left; he must have decided he wouldn’t need it again until later. He mentioned Lady Felicia having an event to go to tonight, so perhaps he plans to stop by for it on his way back through the village.”

The parish secretary’s fretful frown deepened. “He _does_ have to stop by again this evening anyway, for the scones, but that will do him no good if this rain is soaking him to the bone now.”

“I don’t think he had outside work on his agenda today,” the priest soothed her. “He said something about wiring up new heat lamps for the piglets at Casey Newman’s farm. An extra layer would probably have been too much in that situation.”

“Well...” Mrs. McCarthy plucked a bit of fuzz from a worn spot inside the jacket’s collar. “So long as the project has him inside, I suppose he can do without it. But this rain really must stop before he walks back. If the Newmans have piglets then he will be thinking of nothing else on his way home, including an impending case of pneumonia.”

Sullivan couldn’t prevent a small snort from escaping him. “I’m sorry,” he apologized when both of the others looked over at him, “but did you just imply that Carter is fond of pigs?”

“He adores them,” Mrs. McCarthy stated as she began to busy herself making tea. “The piglets, specifically.”

“I’ve always suspected,” Father Brown mused, “that he likes adult pigs just as much as he likes their piglets, but that he suppresses those feelings in favor of his affection for bacon and sausage.”

“And ham,” added the parish secretary, “and spareribs, and pork chops...good heavens, now that I stop and think about it, he would almost have to become one of those vegetarians if he let himself like grown pigs too much to eat them.”

“Did it never occur to him to go into pigs?” inquired Sullivan, amused. His boyfriend’s favorite animal wasn’t at all what he’d come to the presbytery to learn, and from the sound of things Sid wouldn’t be back for tea despite the presence of scones, but he couldn’t let this opportunity to pry information out of the people who knew him best go unseized. “As a...well, I suppose pig farming isn’t really a profession, but...for work? Although it’s difficult to imagine Carter being willing to work that hard...”

Mrs. McCarthy leaped to the absent man’s defense. “Sidney will and does put in a great deal of effort for things he cares about, Inspector. Any of the pig farmers around Kembleford would be delighted to have him. Particularly Mr. Newman, who,” she huffed as she glanced out of the window, “I am quite certain is capable of wiring up heat lamps without dragging anyone else out in a cold rain.”

Father Brown chuckled. “If Mr. Newman knew that the weather was going to turn when he hired Sid for today’s job, then I’d be very interested to hear more about his predictive system. On the note of Sid working with pigs, however,” he continued, turning more fully towards Sullivan, “that’s actually how we met him. He was hired on at Newman’s temporarily. Around this time of the year, in fact.”

How, _how_ had it never occurred to Sullivan to ask Sid how he’d crossed paths with these two? “You met him on a _pig farm_?”

“Yes. Casey Newman makes a good living with his pigs. A few years ago, one of his peers decided that he was making too good of a living with them, to the detriment of others in the same line of work. One morning Mr. Newman found the throats of two of his sows cut. The next morning he found another, and two more after that. And they all had fresh batches of piglets, so each sow’s death put Newman at risk of losing much more stock and of being unable to fulfill his contracts down the road.”

“If it had gone on,” said Mrs. McCarthy, “it could have ruined him. Which would have been terrible for St. Mary’s, because Mr. Newman is steady with his tithing and other donations even though he rarely comes into the village for services.”

“So,” Father Brown picked the thread of the story back up, “you can understand why he was concerned. As it happened, Sid was walking by the farm on the third morning and heard Mr. Newman’s reaction when he found the fourth and fifth pigs dead. It was apparently quite a loud reaction, because it was enough to drive Sid to investigate and check that no one was in danger.”

Mrs. McCarthy huffed again as she began to lay tea out on the table. “To investigate and see if he could learn a few new swear words, is more likely.” Seeing Sullivan’s curious look, she continued. “Mr. Newman’s success with his pigs and his support of the church are both highly commendable, but he has the foulest mouth in the county, and perhaps even in the country. Sidney is much better about controlling his language than he used to be, but I am sure he still delights in any opportunity to broaden the more unsavory parts of his vocabulary. Heaven only knows what he might pick up from Newman today...”

The priest’s eyes were sparkling with suppressed mirth. “Whatever the reason,” he said, “Sid looked in and found Mr. Newman having a small fit. He’d stayed up all night on guard, but he has several barns, and one person can only do so much. So, when he saw Sid standing in front of him, clearly new in the area and in need of a decent meal and a little cash, Newman asked him to stay on for a few days and help watch the pigs.”

“To which Sidney agreed,” Mrs. McCarthy cut in, taking the chair over which Sid’s jacket still hung, “and thank goodness for that. The guilty party would have cut the Father’s own throat when he discovered who they were.”

“I did get a rather close shave towards the end,” Father Brown joked, rubbing the side of his neck. “Mr. Newman asked me to look into the deaths of his pigs the same day that Sid arrived. The police were having little success, and even with help Newman couldn’t stay up nights forever. Things seemed to calm for a week or so after that, but then Sid startled someone during the night rounds. When he took me to see where he’d been and told me what had happened, everything fell into place. We chatted for a bit longer while he finished hand-feeding the piglets that hadn’t been accepted by surrogate sows, and then I started back to let our Inspector at the time know where he might want to concentrate his investigation.”

“And that,” glowered the parish secretary, “was when Charlie Pivens came out of the hedgerow holding the same knife he had used on those poor pigs and threatened the Father with it.” She looked as if she would still like to give Pivens a piece of her mind despite the amount of time that had passed since the incident.

“At which point Sid, who had felt the urge to follow me a few minutes after I left, caught up with us. I _might_ have been able to talk Pivens down if Sid hadn’t appeared,” the priest contemplated, “but I wouldn’t have put the odds at any better than fifty-fifty. And I’m quite certain I would have lost money had I bet on my chances of dodging more than the first strike. Fortunately, Sid had much more recent brawling experience than I did, and was able to wrestle Pivens down after he lunged for me.”

“‘Fortunately’ is not the word I would use,” judged Mrs. McCarthy as she slid a scone onto Sullivan’s plate. “I have always considered it a small miracle that neither of you sustained any worse injury than a few cuts and scrapes. Though I did worry whether that deep nick over Sidney’s left knee was ever going to close properly. Four stitches, and he kept insisting on walking around on it, the stubborn boy...”

Sullivan was startled to realize that he had seen the nick she was talking about. It was a scar now, and slightly faded, but it had caught his eye more than once before. The fact that Sid had gotten it by inserting himself between Father Brown and a knife-wielding assailant during an investigation didn’t surprise him in the least, though the porcine aspect of the case was unexpected.

“As terrible as it sounds, I’m glad he kept tearing out those stitches,” said Father Brown. “Having to get them re-done three times kept him here long enough for us to convince him to stay permanently.”

“There is that to be thankful for,” Mrs. McCarthy allowed, “though worsening an injury is hardly the way I would have chosen to get more time with him.”

“No, but you used that extra time well. I don’t think he was entirely serious about moving on once he’d tasted your cooking. Particularly,” the Father looked down at his plate, “that first strawberry scone.” He picked up the pastry. “This one looks as fine as all your others do, Mrs. McCarthy.”

“How it looks is only part of the battle,” the parish secretary stated. “Frozen strawberries may _look_ fine enough when baked, but as for taste and texture...well, Inspector, I can only hope that your impartial judgement finds this batch to be acceptable.”

They were both watching him expectantly. Caught off guard, Sullivan felt some of the nervousness that had vanished while he’d been listening to them talk about Sid creep back in. “Oh, ah...yes. Of course.” He took the scone up in his fingers and tried to look as though he was examining it closely. This, he feared, was going to be exactly like the rose had been. He enjoyed Mrs. McCarthy’s strawberry scones, because who didn’t, but he was no culinary aesthete. Couldn’t he just like a thing without having to be able to wax poetic about its details?

He chewed the first bite slowly and tried to compare what he was tasting to other batches he’d sampled in the past. It was an almost pointless exercise. He knew that those past scones had been excellent, and that this scone was also particularly good, but he could draw few finer distinctions than that.

“It seems a little...sweeter?...than usual,” he ventured. He had no idea if that was really the case, but he knew that sugar was often used in the preservation of fruit products. “And less...bright?” Of course the strawberries would be less bright, they’d been off the plant and in a bag in a freezer for at least six months. It made sense. “But those aren’t bad things,” he hastened to add when Mrs. McCarthy’s brow knit. “It’s very good.”

“Hmpf. Exactly what I thought when I tasted them earlier. Thank you, Inspector. They are far from my best, but if you like them then I suppose they might prove to be good enough for this mystery date Sidney has tomorrow.”

Sullivan nearly choked on his second bite. “‘Mystery date?’” he managed to get out. “You made these for tomorrow...for him to give to someone...some woman...for Valentine’s Day?”

“I did,” she affirmed. “And he must like her a great deal, because not only did he ask me to make my scones as a special gift, he also brought me all the ingredients. He had to drive into Cheltenham and go to that fancy new supermarket place for the strawberries.” She shook her head, then rose to begin transferring the rest of the scones into a waiting tin. “But I wish I had had some of my own preserves to put in them instead,” she said over her shoulder. “It is high time he settled down to just one person, and I will not have substandard scones be the reason why he fails to win the heart of this fair maiden of his.”

It was difficult to swallow with a mouth as dry as Sullivan’s suddenly was, but he didn’t dare stop eating the scone he had just praised. As he raised the pastry to his lips once again, Father Brown, whose own serving had already disappeared, watched him with slightly narrowed eyes. Sullivan knew what that narrowing meant; the priest was running calculations and scenarios, figuring something out. He could guess what that something might be, and it wasn’t good.

Seeing that his watching had been noticed, Father Brown smiled. “As delicious as your scones always are,” he said, never looking away from Sullivan, “I’m sure that whoever Sid is looking forward to seeing tomorrow likes him for reasons other than his easy access to your baking.”

“She had just better,” said the parish secretary fiercely, “or I assure you I shall have more than a few choice words for her. The very idea,” she went on, “that someone would use our Sidney to get to my scones...the recipe is certainly worth stealing, but to manipulate him so cruelly for it...oh, Father, now here I am being suspicious of the girl, without even knowing who she is...”

“Calm down, Mrs. McCarthy.” The priest glanced towards her, then looked back at Sullivan, who knew that a faint hint of color had risen into his cheeks despite his strenuous efforts to suppress the reaction. His smile became deeply satisfied. “...I’m quite certain that we have nothing to worry about.”


	3. Martyrs and Ham Sandwiches

Sullivan was desperate to get out of the presbytery. There was no way to do so, though, without all but giving away the truth. Mrs. McCarthy was clearly the only person in the room who was still under the impression that Sid was meeting a woman tomorrow, but Sullivan wasn’t in a hurry to either disavow her of that belief or to confirm Father Brown’s quite opposite conclusion. So he sat in his chair, sipped his tea, and let his head spin.

While he had been taking the safe route and letting Sergeant Goodfellow think he was going to be alone tomorrow, Sid had been enlisting Mrs. McCarthy’s help with preparations for their date. The rendezvous hadn’t been a surprise to Father Brown, either. And Sid having plans for Valentine’s Day appeared to be unusual, based on the commentary that had just been exchanged. He really, _really_ needed to figure out this damned puzzle, if only so that he could go to the caravan at the appointed time and ask Sid if he’d lost his mind...

Mrs. McCarthy had just closed the lid on the tin of scones when the door opened and let in a frigid draft. The parish secretary’s head came up sharply. “He had better not have walked back in this wet without so much as a jacket.”

To Sullivan’s relief – not just because he didn’t want his boyfriend to get sick any more than Mrs. McCarthy did, but also because it would be impossibly awkward if he showed up now – it wasn’t Sid at the door. Lady Felicia blew into the kitchen instead, her face alight with news. Her gaze fell on each of them in turn. “Is he- oh, good afternoon, Inspector.” She seemed briefly disconcerted by his presence at the table, but she went on after a bemused blink. “Is he here?” She nodded towards the jacket on the back of Mrs. McCarthy’s abandoned seat and lowered her voice. “Sid?”

“Casey Newman dragged him out into this awful weather to string up lights for piglets,” Mrs. McCarthy replied.

Lady Felicia smiled. “If there are piglets involved, there was no dragging required.”

“I know that much, Lady Felicia, but how is he going to walk back here when the work is done without catching eight kinds of fever? And with this special meeting of his tomorrow, too.”

“Oh, good, so you _do_ know about that.” Lady Felicia was practically vibrating with excitement. “Did he tell you who it is that he’s meeting?”

Sullivan had to concentrate to keep his hands from clenching so tightly around his teacup that they shattered it. He dared a look at Father Brown, whose expression was interested but carefully clueless. If he imitated that look, but replaced interest with boredom and cluelessness with disdain, maybe he could limit the fallout from his visit.

“No.” A beat passed before Mrs. McCarthy turned to the other woman with crossed arms. “Did he tell _you?”_

“No, I’ve no idea who it is,” Lady Felicia chirped. “I’m sure he’ll tell us eventually, assuming things go well. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try to figure it out for ourselves in the meantime.” She sent a grin towards Father Brown as she settled into the chair bearing Sid’s jacket. “Although I think the Father already knows. He has that gleam in his eye.”

That was enough to make Mrs. McCarthy whirl on him. “Have you known this whole time?” she demanded. “Known, and not told me?!”

Father Brown raised one hand and gave up on his subterfuge. “I’ve had nothing confirmed by either of the involved parties, Mrs. McCarthy. I’m sorry, but I really couldn’t say.”

Mrs. McCarthy absorbed that for a moment. She opened her mouth to speak, but Lady Felicia beat her to the question. “What do you think?” the Countess queried, leaning forward. “Is it a good match? Will they go well together?”

“Oh, very well, I think.”

“But if they go well together,” Mrs. McCarthy pressed, “will she let him run wild? Heaven knows the last thing he needs is some woman encouraging bad habits.”

The priest’s mouth quirked upward. “I daresay the person I have in mind will go out of their way to prevent Sid’s getting into any serious trouble.”

“Well, that is a blessing, at least.”

Lady Felicia gave a happy little hum. “Valentine’s Day. I know some people are opposed to it, but what could be objectionable about a holiday focused on love?”

“I agree,” said Mrs. McCarthy emphatically. When everyone stared at her, she went on. “Why should I object to any saint’s feast, and especially to the feast of one who was martyred for marrying people? There are few better reasons to be murdered than for carrying out a holy sacrament.”

“Is that what happened?” Sullivan had asked the question before he knew he was going to speak at all. “I’ve never heard that before.” Being raised vaguely Anglican hadn’t given him the best grounding in the lives of saints, but this sounded like the sort of thing that would normally have been circulated as part of popular culture. It might be useful to know more.

“It tends to be the most well-known part of the story,” Father Brown explained. “In short, St. Valentine married a large number of Christian couples against the will of the Roman Emperor Claudius, and was martyred for it. There were other aspects to his death, of course – any sort of preaching or conversion efforts were dangerous in the Roman Empire at that time, and St. Valentine didn’t exactly limit his activities to inside the community of believers – but romance is often more palatable to people than religion, particularly nowadays.”

“Though sometimes,” put in Mrs. McCarthy, “the two come together beautifully. When I was a girl, I always wanted to make a pilgrimage to Dublin.” Her voice grew wistful. “There is a shrine to St. Valentine there, at the Whitefriar Street Church, where one can pray to find true love.”

“What young girl doesn’t want to find true love?” sighed Lady Felicia. She looked up at Mrs. McCarthy as the other woman handed her a cup of tea. “Did you ever go?”

“No.” Mrs. McCarthy put on a tight smile. “I met my husband first, and the pilgrimage no longer seemed necessary. Though I understand that many married couples go to the shrine together as a way to strengthen their relationship.”

“I don’t foresee us convincing Sid to make that journey no matter how tomorrow turns out,” Lady Felicia chuckled. “But it was _terribly_ romantic when he came to me this morning and asked for permission to cut a rose from the conservatory.”

“A rose?” Father Brown queried.

“Asked permission?” goggled Mrs. McCarthy.

Ah-ha, thought Sullivan. So Sid had done the thing properly and gotten clearance to take the flower that was currently nestled in – and, he winced guiltily, probably wilting – alongside the three dozen sheets of wrapping paper in his desk drawer. Then there was the mystery on those pages, and the drive into Cheltenham for strawberries, and who knew what else. The parish secretary hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d said that Sid would put in a great deal of effort for things he cared about. The fact that he cared enough about Sullivan to go to such lengths made the Inspector want to grin like an idiot.

“Yes! He looked so nervous, too, like he thought I might say no and leave him without one to give to this special person of his. I’ve never seen him like that before. It was absolutely precious.” Lady Felicia’s gaze fell on Sullivan then, and her smile widened. “And here you are, Inspector, biting your lip like you have your own news about tomorrow.”

He was biting his lip because it was the only way he could keep that fool grin from breaking through. “No,” he managed to get out without losing control. “I have no plans for tomorrow, besides the usual routine.”

“Nothing?” She looked puzzled by that revelation. “Well, you can join me in the lonely-hearts club, then. Monty can’t possibly get away from London mid-week, even for Valentine’s Day.”

“Have you had no cards from your secret admirers?” prodded Mrs. McCarthy, a hint of disapproval lacing her tone.

“There was one thing,” Lady Felicia admitted. “A rather lovely bottle of perfume. But the fact that it was mailed tells me I won’t be seeing the sender any time soon.”

Real pity for the disappointed Countess mingled with relief over the fact that Flambeau wouldn’t be around to hatch any schemes that might put Sid’s Valentine’s Day plans at risk. “At least a bottle of perfume will last longer than most of the gifts that will be given tomorrow,” Sullivan said in an attempt to both commiserate with Lady Felicia and distract himself from his own joyful anticipation.

Father Brown’s chair creaked as his attention snapped to Sullivan. “I didn’t have you down as a Valentine’s Day skeptic, Inspector.”

“And here we’ve been going on and on about it,” said Lady Felicia ruefully.

“I’m...I’m not a skeptic,” Sullivan defended himself. He hadn’t meant to start a debate, but he certainly wasn’t going to back down from the priest’s challenge. “I don’t have a problem with the holiday, in theory. I just think that people often don’t put much thought into it. They do things for Valentine’s Day because they feel that they’re expected to, not because they really want to. The flowers or candies last for a day, and then they’re gone and forgotten until next year. There’s no depth to it.”

The Father nodded, and a slight rigidity that Sullivan hadn’t seen come into his posture eased. “You have a point there. I’m sure that for many people it does become something they do by rote, year after year, to no real lasting effect. But when the effort is heartfelt, there’s nothing ephemeral about it.”

“No,” Sullivan agreed. “No, of course not.”

“The work Sidney has put into his plans for tomorrow has certainly been heartfelt,” Mrs. McCarthy tacked on. “Getting materials for me to make scones, and asking Lady Felicia for permission to cut a rose, and- What was it you helped him with, Father?”

Oh, God, they’d all _three_ been part of Sid’s planning? It was no wonder that the priest had figured things out so quickly. Coming here, Sullivan lamented, had been incredibly stupid. All he’d learned was that his boyfriend liked him and piglets enough to go to great lengths for them both, and the location of a shrine to a man who had been dead for nearly two millennia. And he still had no idea what time tomorrow he was supposed to be at the caravan.

“A poem, Mrs. McCarthy.”

Lady Felicia gasped. “He _didn’t.”_

“He did. I didn’t help with the actual writing of it, but he asked my advice on the form it should take. He was trying to put some sort of a hidden message in it, so I suggested a simple acrostic.”

“Oh, I remember those,” said Lady Felicia. “We used to write them out all the time in school. We’d take the name of a boy we liked, or of a teacher we didn’t, and use each letter as the basis for a line about them. Some of them were really quite inappropriate, in retrospect...”

“They’re common in the Bible and other religious texts,” Father Brown commented. “In fact, it’s my understanding that many early Christians – perhaps even St. Valentine – used acrostics to share information or confirm that they were of the faith. If you know what you’re looking for, you can line up the appropriate columns and read the important part of the message very quickly.”

Sullivan blinked at the priest, astounded. Of _course._ The wrapping paper messages read more like a series of quips than a poem, but that didn’t matter. And what was it the slip of paper in the envelope with the key had said? _Maybe you should look at the beginning again..._

The beginning of each line. A simple acrostic, so simple that Sullivan had overlooked it entirely. If only he could remember exactly what order the notes had been revealed in. Well, he’d kept them organized as he’d taken each sheet off; as soon as he got back to his desk, he’d be able to check.

Lady Felicia had just recalled the name that formed the basis of a poem she’d been particularly proud of. “Miss Ursula Zucker,” she announced. “She was an awful woman. I don’t even think she liked teach-” She broke off as Sullivan stood up. “...Inspector?”

“Excuse me,” he babbled. “There’s something I have to address back at the station. I, ah...lost track of the time.” He started towards the door. “Thank you for the tea. The scone really was quite good, Mrs. McCarthy.”

“Inspector,” Father Brown called after him. “One moment. Lady Felicia,” he addressed the Countess, “would you be so kind as to go out to the Newman farm and pick Sid up? If he isn’t done by the time you get there, he shouldn’t be long, and it will keep him from walking in the rain.”

“Of course,” Lady Felicia agreed. For some reason, she kept glancing in Sullivan’s direction as she spoke to the priest. “I had planned on going to get him once I heard where he was, anyway.”

“Thank you. Perhaps you could give the Inspector a ride back to the police station on your way? We wouldn’t want him to catch cold, either.”

“Certainly.” If she was caught off guard by Father Brown hustling her off on an errand – she had, Sullivan could tell even from a distance, barely touched her tea – she recovered rapidly. She lifted Sid’s jacket from the back of the chair, then gestured towards the tin of scones that Mrs. McCarthy had packed. “I’ll take those to Sid if you’d like me to, Mrs. McCarthy. It will save him a dash between droplets on our way back through.”

“Yes, please do. And you have his jacket?”

“I do. Ready, Inspector?”

He’d been ready for ages. As he held the door, Sullivan sent a final look back into the presbytery kitchen. Mrs. McCarthy had started to wash the dishes from tea, but Father Brown was gazing after his departing guests. Meeting Sullivan’s eyes, he smiled and nodded. Go on, then, interpreted Sullivan. Go be in love.

* * *

It was a short drive to the police station, and the rain splattering on the top of Lady Felicia’s sportscar required raised voices, but the Countess drew Sullivan into conversation anyway. “I never asked what brought you out for tea,” she began. “It’s so rare to get to see you in a social setting without a formal invitation.”

“Yes, well...” He’d never even gotten to provide Father Brown and Mrs. McCarthy with his alibi for showing up at the church. Their talk had moved along too quickly, bearing him with it. “I was looking for a chicken thief.”

She sent him a sidewise look. “I take it you didn’t find him?”

“No. But I did learn that he prefers pork. So perhaps he isn’t the chicken thief, after all.”

“No, I’m sure he isn’t.” Her lips curved upward. “It’s a shame you have something pressing to do. Otherwise, you could come out to the Newman farm with me and ask Sid about the missing chicken directly. I know you like to be thorough in your investigations. And once you’ve seen him with piglets, you would never need to suspect him of any future crime in which pigs were harmed.”

They had pulled up outside of the station. Lady Felicia withdrew her hands from the steering wheel and held them out, parallel to the ground and to one another, a few inches apart. “He takes the little runty ones that can’t get close enough to their mothers to stay warm,” she disclosed, “and holds them between his hands like this, and calls them ham sandwiches in just the _sweetest_ voice.

“But don’t tell him I told you that. He only does it when he thinks no one’s looking. If he hadn’t been so distracted by Lord Edswelth’s newborn show pigs that I had to go looking for him to drive me home after the last summer fete at Brandings, I’d have no idea.”

He knew he was gaping, but he couldn’t stop. The image of Sid sitting starry-eyed and sprawl-legged in a pile of straw whilst whispering ridiculous honey-toned things like ‘ham sandwich’ to the shivering piglet he was warming in his hands had overloaded circuits that Sullivan hadn’t known his brain possessed. “Ah...Lady Felicia...why are you telling me this?”

“Because I wanted to see your reaction,” she admitted. “And now that I have, I know why Sid asked permission to cut a rose this morning. I wouldn’t have cared if he took one without asking – it's a flower, it will grow back – but you would have.”

“What...how...?” It was one thing for Father Brown to have uncovered the truth, but while Lady Felicia was no fool, she was also no Father Brown.

“No one who doesn’t have plans for Valentine’s Day would bite their lip quite the way you were earlier. I didn't realize that those plans were with Sid, not at first, but then you were so quick to defend yourself to Father Brown when he suggested that you were a Valentine’s skeptic. And the way you suddenly remembered the time when the topic of acrostics came up...who else would Sid be sending a Valentine’s poem with a secret message in it to? He would just tell the message directly to anyone else, but you’d enjoy a little puzzle like that.

“But,” her gaze softened, “I wasn’t certain until just now, when you pictured him with the piglets.”

“Oh, my God,” Sullivan groaned. “Do I need to put a bag over my head until the fifteenth? Father Brown and you both figured it out within the span of an hour. At this rate of discovery, we’ll be arrested before dawn.”

She reached over and gently squeezed his arm. “You won't be. We only knew there was anyone special in his life at all because he asked for our help with tomorrow.” She paused. “He let us think that it’s a new relationship, but it’s not, is it?”

It was oddly easy to talk to her like this. The obscuring curtain of rain outside and the knowledge that she not only adored Sid and would never harm him but also had experience hiding her own affairs of the heart made Sullivan feel safer than when he’d been outnumbered at the presbytery. “...No.”

“How long? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Four months.”

“See, then? You’ve been hiding it very well. Honestly, Inspector, he probably only gave us the chance to realize what was happening because you've kept it so well covered up. And because he wanted to do tomorrow properly.”

“Tomorrow...” Sullivan shook his head. “I had no idea he could be so romantic.”

“Well, it _has_ only been four months. And you can hardly be as open about such things and spend as much time together as you could and would if one of you was a woman.”

“Yes, but still.”

“It will go faster now,” she assured him. “You won’t have to hide when you’re with us anymore. That will help. And the truth will stay inside our little bubble. I know you think that Mrs. McCarthy and I are the most terrible gossips – which is valid, because we really are, and the poor Father is probably sick of hearing us confess about it – but the wonderful thing about having a reputation for talking about everyone is that people assume the things you aren’t talking about aren’t happening. It’s a useful little trick, and one that we’ll both be delighted to play on the outside world in this instance.”

“Mrs. McCarthy hasn’t realized,” said Sullivan. “Didn’t you hear her back there? She obviously thinks that Sid is planning to see a woman tomorrow.”

“I suspect that she only stressed that as much as she did because you were there and she thought she needed to protect him. She’s known Sid as long as Father Brown has; she’s perfectly well aware that he might be meeting someone of either sex. Now that we’ve left, she’ll insist on knowing exactly who it is that he's meeting so that she can continue to be on guard against you if she needs to be.

“No, Inspector, if she doesn’t have the truth out of the Father within the next five minutes, I’ll be shocked. He’s perfectly capable of withholding information from her, but I think he only refused to answer earlier because he wanted to spare your feelings. He won’t let her fret seriously any longer than he has to. Not over Sid.”

“...Oh.” He blew out a long breath. “This is all very complicated, Lady Felicia.”

“Families usually are,” she beamed. Then she touched his arm again, more lightly this time. “I hope that by now you know you can trust us?”

“I...do know that. But it’s still difficult for me. Not because of anything any of you have done, but for...other reasons.”

She nodded, her eyes compassionate but not prying. “Well, maybe it will become easier now that you can start being yourself more often.”

“...Yes. Maybe so.” Clearing his throat, Sullivan reached for the door handle. “Thank you for the ride.”

“My pleasure. Oh, and Inspector?”

He turned back from opening his umbrella just outside the sportscar’s door. “Yes?”

Her expression was all encouragement. “Have a happy Valentine’s Day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fans of the wonderfully hilarious P.G. Wodehouse may have smirked at 'Lord Edswelth' and 'Brandings.' If you aren't familiar with Lord Emsworth and the rest of the Blandings universe, and/or if you need a bit more absurdity in your life, I highly recommend checking it out.


	4. The Permanent Warrant

‘Eight tomorrow’ had been the secret message in the wrapping paper notes. Now eight tomorrow was eight today, was in thirty seconds according to Sullivan’s watch, was _right now_. He shuffled his feet in the grass outside the caravan. He hadn’t been this nervous since the moments leading up to their first kiss, which had occurred, he suddenly remembered, almost exactly where he was standing.

It had been a crisp October day, and he’d come up here to question Sid about recent shipments of illicit gin. The younger man had sworn that he knew nothing, but he hadn’t been able to keep his amusement hidden. Annoyed – he’d really needed to solve the case, because the Chief Inspector was getting pressure from the Commissioner and passing it right on down to his subordinates – Sullivan had snapped at Sid about having a terrible poker face.

“Nothing wrong with my poker face, Inspector,” he’d replied. “I’m tired of wearing it around you, that’s all.”

“I have neither the time nor the patience for riddles right now, Carter!”

Sid had shrugged. “There’s no riddle.”

“Then what on earth are you talking about? If you do know something about this-”

“I don’t. I just figure it’d be a lot easier overall, and nicer, too, if we quit dancing around each other and kissed already.”

Sullivan had been so wrapped up in work and annoyance and the need to pay attention to anything other than the fact that Sid was leaning in the doorway of the caravan wearing nothing more than a vest and a pair of loose trousers (unbraced, and from what he could tell at a glance only barely hanging onto their wearer’s hips) that he’d spoken before he thought. “Yes, it probably would be, but that’s not really an option, is it?”

They’d blinked at one another for a moment, both surprised. Then Sid had stepped down to the ground, descending slowly, his gaze never leaving Sullivan. Only when they were close enough to feel one another’s heat did he raise his eyes to scan the edges of his meadow. “...Innit?” he whispered once he’d verified that they were alone.

Transfixed by the play of the sunlight on his cheekbones and the ruffled velvet tone in which that crammed-together invitation had been spoken, Sullivan had barely managed a response. “Ah...Sid...I...”

“Heh.” That little chuckle, and the triumphant smirk that came on its heels, had made Sullivan’s knees weak. “Yeah. Thought as much.”

And God, Sullivan shivered under the star-studded February sky, had Sid been right in his thinking. It hadn’t just been a kiss that afternoon. It couldn’t be, because they’d been ‘dancing around each other’ for so long that the first meeting of their lips muted all the rational capabilities of their brains and turned them both into needy, grasping madmen. Every time he thought back over that opening salvo in their relationship, Sullivan was amazed that they’d made it inside the caravan and down its length to the bed. The relieved and slightly bashful laugh they’d shared later, when they looked up from their tangle of exhausted limbs and noticed that they hadn’t even shut the door, still brought a smile to his face.

His nervousness had gone. He knew what was waiting inside for him, behind the closed curtains that let only a thin sliver of light out into the world, and it was good. Reaching out, he grasped the handle of the door and pulled.

It was locked. For the space of a breath, Sullivan was confused. Then he realized _why_ the door was locked, and reached into his pocket to extract his key ring.

Sid was in profile when he entered, stirring something on the single propane hob that served, with the tiny sliver of countertop beside it, as the caravan’s entire kitchen. “I guess that permanent warrant of yours works alright,” he smirked without looking up from the pan.

Sullivan glanced down at the key that was still between his fingers. “Permanent...warrant,” he repeated slowly. That really was what he was holding, now that Sid pointed it out. It was a huge amount of trust for a sometimes-smuggler to hand to a policeman, well beyond the level usually implied by the giving of a key in a relationship. He was floored all over again, just like he had been when he’d first seen the contents of the waxed-paper envelope.

“Yeah.” He tapped his wooden spoon against the side of the pan, set it aside, and took the single short step that had separated them. Then he reached down and lifted Sullivan’s hand, key and all. “Permanent warrant to my heart,” he declared, examining the gift he’d delivered. “Search it anytime; you’ll always find what you’re looking for.”

If that wasn't all but a declaration of love, Sullivan didn’t know what was. But it wouldn’t be playing the game to simply say as much. “And what would I be looking for, exactly?”

“Oh, I think we both know the answer to that.” Eyes flashing, Sid brushed his lips over Sullivan’s knuckles. “Have a seat. Dinner’s about done.”

Sullivan hated the caravan’s ‘table.’ It was tiny, consisting of two one-person bench seats and a rectangle of highly finished wood that swung down from the wall to rest on a single support leg. It was also uncomfortable, not only because there was barely room for two plates on the dining surface but because the seat cushions were far less padded than they ought to have been. Plus, the knowledge that there was storage space below made Sullivan feel like he might fall through at any second and land on spare parts and off-season clothes.

But he loved it at the same time, because the seats were too close together for two grown men to sit in them without touching almost continuously from the knee down. This had led to many games of footsie during which they both inevitably tried to cheat by looking in order to spare their toes a painful stub. To make things fair, they’d agreed to play only so long as they were also kissing above the table, which prevented them from seeing anything but each other. The only problem with this rule, if one could call it a problem, was that so much kissing generally caused footsie to become something far more intimate before they’d finished eating.

“You’ll want to get all your food in before we get too distracted tonight,” Sid said as he set their servings down. He‘d kept them covered to minimize aromas, and now he whipped off the tin plates he’d used as makeshift lids. “...And not just ‘cause you’re gonna need your strength later.”

Sullivan groaned, partially at the implication in his boyfriend’s words and partially at the sight before him. His steak appeared to be done to a perfect medium, and was flanked by green beans and mushrooms and a flawless baked potato. “...You made my favorite,” he marveled. “...But how did you even know my favorite?” They’d talked about many things over the past four months, but he didn’t remember preferred last meals being one of the topics.

“‘Bout a year ago now, I was in the cells.” Sid passed him a mug, which proved to contain red wine. “Constable Lafferty’s birthday was the next day, and everyone was talking about what they liked for a birthday dinner. They asked you, too, and,” he grinned as he took his seat, “you were in such a good mood from locking me up that you gave them an answer.”

“And you remembered it? From a year ago?”

“Thought it might come in handy sometime. Anyway,” he sipped from his own mug, “you’d be lying if you said you weren’t collecting info on me from day one, too. And not because it would help you do your job.”

“You’re not wrong.” Sullivan considered his plate again. “...Sid, this is wonderful. Though,” he jested as he picked up his knife and fork, “I’m surprised it isn’t pork, since I hear that’s _your_ favorite.”

“You heard all sorts of fun things about me yesterday, is what I was told.” He paused to watch Sullivan take his first bite. “...How is it?”

“Exactly the way it should be. Thank you.”

“Good. I wasn’t sure. I’ve never cooked a steak for that long before. Not that I cook steak often, obviously, but still. I asked Mrs. M. how long to make it medium, but I still thought for sure it was too much time.”

“Yes, I see that you prefer yours to still be capable of lowing.” Sid's steak, he could tell at a glance, would be so rare that it bled when he cut into it.

“Heh. That’s what Mrs. M. says. Makes her wrinkle her nose, too. You _did_ have a bit of a chat over tea, if you’re repeating her lines.”

“Mrs. McCarthy was too busy trying to subtly convince me that you were meeting a woman tonight to share much other new information.”

“Well, she’s straight on that point now, and glad to know how you take your steak. The Father’s birthday’s the week after Easter this year, and he takes any excuse for a steak he can get. Mrs. M. wanted me to pass on a message about that, actually.” His voice rose into a loving mockery of the parish secretary’s. “‘Now, Sidney, you be certain to tell the Inspector that he is expected to come to dinner here that night, no matter how many murderers are running about.’”

Sullivan nearly snorted wine through his nose. “Your imitation of her is disturbingly accurate.”

“I get a lot of practice. Hell, I do it in front of her sometimes. She glares like she wants to set me on fire, but she knows it’s all in good fun. I think, and the Father agrees, that she’s secretly flattered anyone’s listening close enough to her to parrot it back. Oh, yeah, speaking of listening...how was that rose?”

Sullivan’s jaw paused mid-chew as he stared across the table. After a moment he finished his bite and asked incredulously, “Surely you didn’t expect me to hold it up to my ear?”

“Well no, but you know...other senses. Like we’ve talked about. Taking your time with things, enjoying them. Did you do that?”

Sullivan felt a blush rise into his cheeks. Sid sighed, though with little real annoyance. “Tell me you didn’t only look at it. I mean, it was gorgeous – I still can’t believe Lady F. let me take such a nice one – but there was so much more there than that.”

“I smelled it,” Sullivan countered. “It was nice. Very...nice.”

“Real rosy, was it?”

His face flamed. “Ah...yes. Rosy. And...dewy.”

“Alright, that’s something,” Sid encouraged, his momentary sarcasm having fled. “That’s a start. Dewy’s good. What else?”

Now Sullivan sighed. “Sid, I’m not good at those sorts of things. Sensations.” He knew if he liked a feeling or if he didn’t, but he struggled to describe why. His vocabulary for comparing one experience to another was mostly limited to ‘better’ and ‘worse.’ This steak, for instance, was better than most that he’d eaten, and he liked it a great deal. Tomorrow he’d be able to state those two things plus that he was moved by Sid having made it for him. He wouldn’t be able to say a damn thing about its color, or moisture, or texture, or whatever else people referenced when they discussed steak.

“I know, and I’m trying to help.”

“Why, though? Why does it matter?” The thought he’d had when Father Brown and Mrs. McCarthy had both been waiting for him to judge the scone elbowed its way to the front of his mind. “Why can’t I just like a thing without having to be able to list ten specifics?”

“You _can,_ I just...” A wave of upset washed over Sid’s face. He tucked it away quickly, then shook his head. “Never mind. We can talk about it some other time.”

“...No.” There had been too much sadness in Sid’s expression for Sullivan to just go on until some indeterminate ‘other time’ without knowing what was wrong. “This is clearly important to you. We should talk about it now.”

“I’m not gonna ruin Valentine’s Day with it, alright? It’s fine. _I’m_ fine.” He picked up his mug and pointed to Sullivan’s plate with his chin. “Finish your steak so we can make out.”

Sullivan put his utensils down. “You won’t ruin Valentine’s Day. You’ve put entirely too much time and thought and care into planning it to ever be able to ruin it. But knowing that you’re withholding something that bothers you, something that we might be able to resolve right now, will dampen it. So, please, just tell me.”

Sid gnawed at his lip and stared into the depths of his wine. “I have this bad dream sometimes,” he began slowly. “It’s pretty new, just since we’ve been together. But it’s always the same. It’s always me, alone, in a prison cell somewhere.”

Sullivan winced. “Sid...”

“That’s not the bad part, though,” Sid went on. “I mean, it’s not great, but it’s not the bad part. The bad part is that I know you’re in one like it somewhere else, far away, and I know we’re only where we are because of nights like this one. And the _worst_ part...the worst part is knowing I can sit in my cell forever, pulling up all these vivid memories of you, complete with smells and sounds and tastes and feels, but you probably can’t. Not the same way. Not in enough detail to really make it an escape.”

He sniffled quietly as his eyes met Sullivan’s. “It amazes me how good you are with raw, boring information. I see a set of step-by-step instructions somewhere, and I think yeah, that’s him through and through. The order and logic that don’t come natural to me at all...you’ve got those in spades.

“But would those be enough, if we were caught and convicted for what we do together? Would knowing that today happened, and being able to list off the things we did and the order we did them in, give you the same sort of break from reality that I’d be having while I remembered the exact scent of your aftershave, or the feel of your morning stubble under my lips, or the way you say my name when you come?

“Maybe it would,” he shrugged. “I don’t know, ‘cause I can’t think like you. But the idea that it wouldn’t...that scares me. Because if there’s one thing I do know, it’s that you need a way to escape into yourself when you’re behind bars. Not having that makes people crack up.

“That’s why I’ve been trying to get you to slow down, and take things in, and pay attention to the sensations instead of just the facts and figures. It’s not that I don’t want to screw you stupid the second you walk in. I do. It’s that I want us both to be able to relive whatever time we get together whenever we want to or need to. I hope it’s always a question of want, and that we never _need_ those specifics, but...we might. And if we do, I don’t want you to be without them.

“...See?” Sid continued with a pained smile when Sullivan simply stared at him and made no reply. “Told you it’d ruin Valentine’s Day.”

Sullivan finally managed to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat during Sid’s explanation. “And I told you that it isn’t possible for you to do that,” he rebutted. “...You haven’t ruined anything. In fact, I think you’ve given me an idea of how we can make tonight even better than it already was.”

Sid perked up. “Did I?”

“Yes. You did.” Now that he understood what had driven Sid to pester him on this subject, Sullivan also understood – no, not understood, _understood_ – what the only thing in the world that might kick-start his sensation memory was. “I am going to finish this steak – which really is very good, Sid, it all was – and then you’re going to help me find and memorize some sensations.”

Sid’s brow knit. “Wait...did you bring the rose, then? You skipped touch and taste entirely on it, you know.”

“No,” Sullivan chuckled. He’d left the rose safely beside his bed with its stem in ample water. “We’re not going to use the rose.” He picked up his fork, speared a cube of meat, and popped it into his mouth with a deep sense of self-satisfaction. “We’re going,” he answered his boyfriend’s questioning look when the bite was gone, “to use _you.”_


	5. Investigation

It had come to him suddenly, right when Sid sniffled and met his eyes. It was true that he could pull up almost no sensations to go along with most of his memories, but certain recollections of his boyfriend _did_ have sensations attached to them. He had to either focus hard or be very carried away in order to recall them, and he hadn’t even realized that they were being catalogued at the time, but they were there, deep down.

“Like what?“ Sid pressured when Sullivan explained this.

“Like...” Like that memory he’d relived just before he came inside tonight, the one of their first kiss. He’d recalled the heat of Sid’s body when he stopped so close to him, and the sound of his voice, but now, concentrating, he could smell the moment, too. The air had been full of spiced apples, new-cut hay and, in the background, crumbling autumn leaves.

“...That’s it,” Sid grinned across the table at him. “That’s perfect. I hadn’t been home long when you showed up, ‘cause I was over helping Sam Mason change a belt on his harvester. He sent me off with a jug of the cider his dad does up each winter, and I’d just had a bit of it before you knocked. ‘S probably why things went the way they did; Old Will’s stuff’s more like brandy than cider. A sip or two of that, plus you standing at my door and talking about kissing...no wonder I couldn’t control myself.”

Control was something Sullivan was going to have to struggle to hold onto tonight. Reintroducing the olfactory aspect of the memory, he discovered, had sharpened its other details. Clearer in his mind’s eye now was the way that thin vest had been clinging to the lines of Sid’s chest, the gentle stirring a slight breeze had given his hair, and the serious discomfort in his own trousers. Or was that last one just in the present? No, he was quite certain it was in both...

As good as dinner had been, Sullivan was glad that he was on his last bite. He ate it quickly, then tried to push his plate out of the way. It bumped into the caravan’s wall, drawing a glare from him.

Sid laughed. “Hold on.” It was a bit of a stretch, but his arms were just long enough to let him shove their dishes securely onto the countertop. “...There. Now, what’re you thinking?”

Sullivan had folded his coat neatly over the back of his seat when he’d sat down. Feeling it behind him now, he thought about the gift tucked into its deep inner pocket. “Give me your hands.”

“Alright.” And there they were, plopped down on the table so matter-of-factly that Sullivan almost cringed. Such beautiful things might spend their days wrapped around steering wheels and deep inside farm equipment, but they deserved better care than their owner usually showed them. After all, they also warmed baby animals and created the sort of tiny folds and flowing writing that had gotten Sullivan here tonight. Admiration for their wide range of abilities was far from out of line.

He took Sid’s hands up in his own and studied them. Shallow palms, ideal for letting the whole appendage slip into places it oughtn’t go, tapered down into flexible wrists. Knowing that it wasn‘t enough merely to admire the neat bundling of veins and tendons on the undersides, Sullivan caressed them. A shiver ran through the silky skin beneath his thumbs. When it had passed it was replaced by the steady throb of Sid’s pulse, which quickened with every second. Sullivan assigned the feeling its proper sound, marrying the two sensations in his mind, and gave a shiver of his own.

Palm reading was complete rubbish, but as he moved his attention to the section of anatomy that believers put so much stock in Sullivan wished he knew at least a little about the method. He’d never realized how varied the topography of a hand could be until now. Five little hills sat at the base of Sid’s fingers, dipping and rising in contrast to the smooth, shallow bowl at the center of the plains below. Several deep, curving lines ran in from different angles, making river valleys that Sullivan followed with a fingernail. It was warmest where they ended, in the middle, as if the low spot was collecting all the heat from the muscular mounts around it and holding it in reserve for some great purpose. Sullivan couldn’t blame piglets for being comfortable in such a landscape; he’d have gladly crawled into it himself.

Then, finally, the slim and agile digits that had helped send him into ecstasy on more than a few occasions. Sullivan massaged his way to the tip of each one, mapping the lay of sinews and the slight bulge of knuckles. Light calluses at every bend, a small, half-healed cut on the left ring finger, faint and fading scars where other tiny accidents had occurred. Fingers that worked for a living, but which weren’t so dedicated to any one trade as to acquire its telltale marks. Adaptable, clever, well-formed, all exactly like the man they belonged to.

Sullivan raised Sid’s left hand for closer examination. The thumb, he learned, was capable of an almost disturbing backwards lean of seventy-five, perhaps even eighty degrees. He’d heard such extreme angles described as ‘hitchhiker’s thumb’ before, and the appropriateness of the label in this instance didn’t pass him by. His own thumbs were incapable of such acrobatics, and he would never willingly use them to catch a ride with a stranger anyway. Sid, though, would probably hop into any vehicle that offered him a lift, and the driver would no longer be a stranger by the time they were five minutes down the road.

And the prints! He knew very well what Sid’s fingerprints looked like, since they were recorded on page two in his police file and Sullivan had compared them to crime scene lifts a time or three. But black lines on stark white paper were nowhere near as alluring as the gray propane lantern shadows that underlined each minute vanilla-pink ridge tonight. Vanilla...he wondered...

Sid let out a short and satisfied hum when Sullivan took the end of his index finger into his mouth. There was no vanilla, but there were plenty of other flavors. Sullivan closed his eyes and focused. A hint of pepper, no doubt from the seasoning on the steaks; tobacco, but only on the inside edge where a cigarette smoldered several times a day; the faint residue of the soap he’d last washed with. And under it all, the unique blend of skin and sweat and hormones that Sullivan had tasted before, in more frantic moments than this one and on other parts of Sid’s body.

When he looked up, Sid was watching him with pleased, sex-heavy eyes. “C’n do that with all my fingers, if you want,” he murmured.

Sullivan was sorely tempted, but he wanted something else, too. He swirled his tongue once around the flesh between his teeth as a tease, then pulled away. Still holding Sid’s hand, he stood up. “No. Not this time. Come to bed.”

There was sufficient room for Sullivan to push Sid into a sitting position on the edge of the mattress and remain standing over him. He shuffled forward to straddle his knees, then inspired a disappointed sound when he stepped back again. “There’s not enough light when I’m that close,” he explained. “I can’t see you.”

“Well, maybe that’s a good thing?”

He had a point. Images were useful in the building of memories, but Sullivan was already decent at collecting those. He needed to flex his other senses.

The triumphant hiss that Sid gave when Sullivan bridged his legs again was a good start. Sibilant, trembling...there might not be time to inventory much more of the other man before he was yanked down to the blankets. If he’d known how turned on being investigated like this could make Sid, he thought as he bent down and buried his face against his scalp, he’d have started doing it sooner.

No one who used nothing more complicated than a bar of soap in the shower should have had hair this soft. Even the shortened sides, which Sullivan knew had been touched up very recently and ought to still be a little prickly, didn’t irritate his fingers as he stroked his way along them. Down, down now, Sid tilting his head into Sullivan’s cradling hand to give him room. Reports from two zones, his arm calling in warm, trusting weight and his mouth making progress around the curve of an ear. A gasp briefly cooled the inside of his wrist when he nibbled on the velvety, malleable lobe. Sullivan grinned wolfishly and noted not only the soft feel and unobtrusive taste of that bit of flesh but what its manipulation did to his partner. New information, and useful, extremely useful.

Aftershave filled his sinuses, spruce and sea breezes and dappled sunlight, and there it was again, one sense calling up something that could only be observed by another. Had Sid freshly shaved this evening in preparation for their meeting? He must have done, not just because of the aftershave but because the cheek and jaw that Sullivan’s lips were ghosting along were much smoother than usual. Smooth, too, was the pounding in the exposed and begging throat below, smooth but fast, just like the panting that was now filling the air.

Sullivan rose to cut those puffs of breath off with a hard kiss. Sid’s responding groan filled his mouth. Red wine, more pepper, the rough starchy film that potato always left behind, a familiar bit of sweet pastry – because of course, of _course_ Sid had broken into the scones before their date – and then it was too late for any other record to be made, surely, because those gorgeous hands were on his hips and dragging him forward into a blissful tumble.

But it seemed that his brain had grasped the trick, as it kept filing things away as Sullivan pawed at his partner’s clothes. The smooth edges of buttons, the coarse wool of winter-weight trousers, the gentler weave of cotton under that...nice little sensations, yes, but not what he was questing for. What he wanted came on the clothing’s heels: the demanding grasp of legs, a whiff of eager sweat, the taste and tautness of a nipple beneath his tongue, Sid’s pleading moans. Jesus God, if most people could pull up details like these whenever, how did any work ever get done?

There was no time for such philosophical questions, because he was moving up, up and in, too aroused by the idea that he could relive these sensations _any time he wanted_ to draw things out any longer. The minimal amount of preparation he gave Sid was nowhere near as tender as he had intended to be tonight, but really, it was the other man’s own damn fault. If he hadn’t been so heated and delicious and firm, Sullivan would have been better able to rein himself in.

It all built up in his mind, each thrust, every sharp cry of pleasure, the pressure and the salt and the coursing of desire through his entire nervous system. None of these things were new, but the sense of permanence attached to them was. Normally such titillations flowed into him, crowded together in a clamoring mass, and then escaped in a flood at the moment of orgasm. As he hit his climax, though, there was no outgoing rush of experiences. They stayed, no longer raucous but still present, and lingered as patiently as a box of old photos waiting to be sorted through.

“...You’ve never screamed like that before,” Sid observed when they’d both regained their breath.

“Did I scream?” He hadn’t even realized. Oh, well; the approach to it was probably in that stack of feelings that had come too fast at the end to be properly organized. He would, he thought with a little thrill, find it later, when Sid was elsewhere and couldn’t distract him with fresh experiences that needed to be made note of.

“Oh, yeah.” Sid’s voice was husky with the memory.

“That must have been quite loud.” It was a good thing that they were out here, in the caravan, rather than at the police cottage. “I didn’t hurt your ears, did I? I clearly didn’t hurt mine, since I don’t even recall screaming at all.”

“Like getting hit in the head with sex.”

“So you loved it.”

“Sent me straight over.” Sid turned onto his side to face Sullivan, then maneuvered the tangled blankets to cover them both. “Scream some again later, would you? I want to see if it’s different next time.”

“Later?” It wasn’t unusual for them to couple more than once in a night, but this time had been so intense that Sullivan would have been content with a single go.

“Yeah. You know. In five minutes or something.”

“ _Five minutes_?!”

Sid chuckled and gave in. “Maybe not that quick. I mean, you’re a hell of an enticement, but I’m not a machine. Although...” He scooted a bit closer under the covers. “As amazing as tonight’s been, we never did really make out. ‘M kind of missing that.”

“You _are_ an absolute kiss monster,” Sullivan acknowledged.

“I just like your mouth,” Sid replied. He traced Sullivan’s lips with the same finger that had been between them back at the table. “...I like what it does. Like to know more about what it could do.”

“Me, too,” Sullivan whispered back. “There’s a lot of you I haven’t memorized the taste of yet. Then, of course, I’ll have to go back over everything and make sure my initial observations were accurate. And some areas may require more attention than others, for purposes of thoroughness.”

“Keep talking like that, five minutes might do, after all.”

“It won’t, no matter how much you want it to.”

“Yeah...but we could still kiss a bit...have a scone...see where we are?”

Sullivan wondered if having tasted scone on Sid’s breath earlier would now allow him to file away details about the actual pastry. It was worth a try. And if it didn’t work, he thought as he moved forward and pressed their lips together, he could always get the gist of the thing by kissing Sid some more.


	6. Perfect Comfort

They passed the rest of Valentine’s night like a pair of puppies, moving in cycles between food – the scones, Sullivan thought, had improved with time – and cuddled-up sleep and noisy, messy tussling. Things only escalated all the way to sex once more, in the deepest hours of darkness when there couldn’t possibly be anyone nearby to hear Sullivan scream again. It was an even more overwhelming sound than before, or so his boyfriend’s sated voice informed him just before they dropped into another short nap. This came as no surprise to the Inspector, who had worked his way up Sid’s legs this time, ticking off boxes until he’d been drawn back into flurry by the prize where the limbs joined.

Eventually he opened his eyes to find pale winter sun bleeding in around the curtains. The exact time was a mystery, because he’d taken his watch off along with everything else at some point since dinner, but he knew he needed to get up. It was hard, though. They had turned the space heater and the propane lanterns off for safety while they slept, and their activities in between dozes had only sufficed to keep the caravan somewhat warmer than the air outside. Staying under the blankets and admiring Sid’s still-slumbering form in the thin but strengthening light was far preferable to shivering about trying to find where all his clothes had landed.

Although, shivering... Sullivan grinned. A little shivering wouldn’t kill him, but it might get him a bit of special treatment. He slipped out from beneath the covers, then bit back a hiss of protest when his bare feet hit the floor. Tiptoeing to keep as much skin as possible off the cold vinyl, he lit the furthest lanterns from the bed and fired up the space heater. There; it wouldn’t take long now to warm the small space. And it was earlier than he’d thought, he discovered when he spied his watch on the table. They’d have time for breakfast before he left, if they didn’t laze about for too long.

“Ooh, I like that.” Sid was gazing across the caravan at him.

“I’m sure you do,” Sullivan replied. “I’ve done the worst of the morning work.”

“Well that, yeah. But I mostly like that you look so comfortable doing it.”

“This,” he asked, mincing his way back to the bed with chattering teeth, “looks comfortable to you?”

“Not the cold part,” Sid explained as he sat up and opened the blankets to let Sullivan under them. When he’d wrapped the covers and his arms around him, he continued. “I meant the bit where you were moving around and doing things like you were in your own house. You're always stiff and awkward other places. Hell, sometimes you even seem uncomfortable in your own office. But you looked comfortable just now, even though you were cold.”

Sullivan burrowed his head against Sid’s chest. “...I was comfortable,” he confessed. He hadn’t thought twice about sneaking out of bed, taking the matches from their drawer, and preparing the caravan for the day. It was exactly how first holding his personal key to the place had made him hope he would feel. “I _am_ comfortable. Here. With you.”

The distant drumming under Sullivan’s ear sped slightly. “...Good,” Sid whispered, squeezing him. “That’s the best Valentine’s Day present in the world. Well, that, and everything else we did.” A beat passed. “...You’ll be able to remember it, right? The details?”

“Oh, yes.” He hadn’t had the best luck with parsing out specifics about the scones they’d eaten over the course of the night, but every moment he’d spent mapping Sid was crystal clear and multilayered in his mind. “I may have serious trouble at work today, in fact, if I can’t _stop_ remembering some of those details.”

“Even better.”

“For you, perhaps. You’re not the one who has to try and hide a hard-on in the middle of a police station.”

“Just go in your office, lock the door, and give yourself a little lunchtime love. And if it would help to remember me doing it for you...” Sid’s fingers slid into Sullivan’s crotch. “...Aw, you _did_ get cold lighting the lamps.”

“Thank you _so_ much for pointing that out.”

“No judgement,” Sid chuckled. “Same thing happens to me every morning I wake up here in the winter.”

“And naturally,” Sullivan rolled his eyes, “you reverse the effect by playing with yourself.”

“Only when you’re not around for me to play with instead.”

“Wait,” Sullivan said as Sid moved to take him between his palms. “...Wait.” As much as he’d liked the idea of shivering earning him special treatment, this was a little too close for comfort to how he’d envisioned Sid warming piglets. He wanted to keep that side of his boyfriend pure, unsullied, every bit as preciously sweet as Lady Felicia had described it.

“What is it?” Sid pulled his hands back to Sullivan’s hips and kissed his way down the back of his neck. “C’mon, you’re not embarrassed, are you? Shouldn’t be. It happens. And remember, I know _exactly_ how big you can get. Which is a long ways from inadequate.”

“It’s not that. It’s...” The gift. So long as he was already thinking about Sid’s hands and baby pigs, he might as well give him his present. It would distract the other man, and there was a chance that it would make him realize why Sullivan had said stop. “I haven’t given you your Valentine’s Day gift.”

There was a moment of hesitation that Sullivan interpreted as Sid deciding whether to push him further about his shrinkage. “...Alright,” Sid said finally. “If that’s what you want to do.”

Another hurried dash out into the cold – the caravan was warming up, but it was still nowhere near as toasty as inside the circle of Sid’s arms – and Sullivan crawled back into bed beside his boyfriend with a box in his hands. It wasn’t as nice-looking as the one that the first part of the gift had come in, but that container had proven too shallow to accommodate the last-minute addition he’d driven to Gloucester for yesterday morning. “Here. I hope you like it. I...I’m not very practiced at buying meaningful things for others, so if you’d prefer something different-”

“Shh.” A finger pressed itself against his lips. “Whatever it is, it’ll be perfect.” A second later Sid smirked as the flesh under his finger twitched. “Oh, really? What was that, then?”

“Nothing,” Sullivan said. Nothing, except that this was the same finger that he’d had in his mouth last night. He couldn't smell the pepper anymore, but the tobacco was still there, and that undefinable blend that was just Sid. He was sure there were other things this morning, new flavors, but he’d have to pull the finger in with the lips it was silencing to find out. That would neither get Sid’s present opened nor leave them time for breakfast.

Wait. Draw it out. There would be time for more, not today, but other days. He was learning.

“I don’t believe you.” Sid looked tempted to keep the foreplay going, but he withdrew his hand. “I think you’re trying to hide something from me,” he teased. “Maybe it’s in this box. Is that right?”

“Hurry up and open it, and you’ll find out.”

A low intake of breath accompanied the lifting away of the lid. “...You spent too much money on these,” Sid murmured. He stroked the supple, fine-grained leather of the top glove with the same finger Sullivan had so desperately wanted to taste mere moments before. “I know this shop. Lady F. buys stuff there sometimes.” He looked up, his eyes misty. “You really shouldn’t have.”

“I nearly had a fit when I felt your uniform gloves for the first time,” Sullivan revealed. “They look warm, but a _cotton_ lining? If Lady Felicia knew how cold your hands must get sometimes, Sid, she’d be mortified.”

“Yeah, well, that’s part of why I don’t mention it to her. That, and I know they weren’t cheap. They weren’t as expensive as these were,” he caressed the leather again, “but they aren’t the sort of thing a bloke like me could just waltz into the shop and buy on a whim, either.”

“I went with the closest style they had to your current gloves. She might not even notice if you just swap them out. But _you’ll_ notice; these have cashmere inside. The wool will keep you much warmer. And if you’re still cold, there are silk liners that you can wear underneath. It retains heat surprisingly well, silk, but it’s thin enough that you’ll still have the dexterity you need to drive safely.”

“...Let me get this straight,” Sid said slowly. “I gave you a key for Valentine’s Day, and you went out and bought me gloves – and liners – that probably cost more than what that key unlocks? Fuck...”

“What?”

“Nothing, just...now I’m the one feeling inadequate.”

“Well, don’t,” Sullivan ordered. “You don’t have anything more to feel inadequate about than I did a few minutes ago.”

“I guess...but still...”

“You said last night that the key you gave me was a permanent warrant to your heart,” Sullivan insisted. “Now it sounds like you’re trying to put a price on that. That’s an idiotic exercise, and even if you could manage it, the price would be far higher than that of _any_ gloves. With or without silk liners.

“Anyway,” he went on a bit more temperately, “you didn’t just give me the key. You also gave me the ability to remember you in frankly astonishing new ways. Anyone can buy a pair of gloves, Sid, but nothing and no one else could have unlocked that part of my brain. I believe that as firmly as Father Brown believes in God.”

A pretty blush rose into Sid’s cheeks. “You're fairly well convinced, then.”

“Quite. Now, try those on. I’m concerned about the length. If they don’t cover your wrists fully, I can take them back and-”

He was cut off by a delighted little gasp. “Who’s this?” Sid asked as he lifted out the black-and-pink speckled piglet soft toy that Sullivan had sandwiched between the gloves. “I know he’s not alive, but it almost looks like he should be.”

Now it was Sullivan’s turn to flush. “I may have heard from a reliable source that you have the utterly adorable habit of warming undersized piglets in your hands whenever you’re called upon to do so. I, ah...well, I already had the gloves, and I thought...it would be...cute. Sweet.”

“It’s both those things.” Sid had the piglet lying across his left hand. It was a perfect fit, from the small snout that rested in the gorge at the base of his palm to the tiny curled tail that hovered above the tip of his middle finger. “And you said you were bad at picking out meaningful gifts. You’re not; you’re a bloody natural.”

“I’m surprised by my success, I admit.”

“You shouldn’t be. You should have known you were a natural the second you decided to skive off work yesterday to find this little guy.”

Sullivan jumped. “How do you know I...that is, I didn’t ‘skive off’ work,” he corrected. “I had to go into Gloucester anyway to deliver copies of last month’s reports.”

“Always do that yourself, do you?”

“Well, no, but...I wanted to find the right one. They had a couple at toy shops in Cheltenham, but they weren’t very realistic.”

“I didn’t even know they made them this realistic.” Sid considered the piglet carefully. “He needs a name.”

“I don’t know much about it, of course,” said Sullivan, “but I did notice at last year’s agricultural fair that many of the show pigs seemed to have very proud, regal sort of names. Empress, Sultana, King...something, I can’t recall now, but it amused me at the time...”

“King Chonk,” Sid filled in. “I remember him. I dunno what ‘chonk’ means – maybe it’s foreign, Lady F.’s said before that the Marquess of Swindon spent a lot of time abroad when he was younger – but that pig looked like what you’d think a chonk was supposed to.”

“He was almost frighteningly massive.”

Sid cast him a pitying glance. “Want me to hold your hand this year so you don’t have to be afraid of the piggly-wigglies?”

“That particular ‘piggly-wiggly’ weighed nearly half a ton! Besides, I wasn’t any more afraid of him than I am of the stuffed piglet you’re holding.”

“So you _don’t_ want me to hold your hand?”

“I wish you could without getting us thrown in jail, but as things are...”

“Yeah. Fair point.”

“Although there is something else we could do together that involves pigs.”

“...There is?”

“Yes. I can’t believe I’m about to ask this, but the next time you’re helping with piglets, could I...come with you?”

Sid stared at him. “Sorry, think I might’ve just had a bit of a stroke. You what?” He began to laugh. “You - _you,_ the squeaky-clean and buttoned-up Detective Inspector Sullivan – want to come help out on a pig farm?”

“Well...I...yes.”

“Have you seen a pig farm? It’s probably what you envision when you’re reading that one book where Hell’s a layer cake or whatever.”

“...Do you mean Dante’s _Inferno?”_

“Sounds about right, yeah. Anyway, a pig farm is not your natural habitat. Trust me.”

“I know that, Sid, but...I want to see you warm up the piglets.”

He’d muttered the important part of that sentence in such a low voice that he hadn’t even been able to hear himself. “You want to try that again?” Sid asked.

“I...” His face was hot. “I want to see you warming up the piglets. Like that,” he gestured towards the toy. “In your hands.” Sid’s stare had become a full gape. “And...maybe...if no one’s around...would you call them ham sandwiches?” Was it possible to die from blushing too hard? “I know you normally don’t if anyone’s nearby, but I thought that maybe if I was the only one listening...”

“You...want to stand around and watch me warm piglets in my hands while I call them ham sandwiches?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. It’s very strange, and I don’t know why I find it so sweet, but it just breaks something in my brain. That’s how Lady Felicia realized that we’re together, actually. She told me about the ham sandwiches.” He knew he wasn’t supposed to share that, but it rushed out along with everything else about the past forty-eight hours that had left him sputtering. “My face gave us away immediately.”

“If it looked anything like it does now, I’m not surprised.” Sid glanced downward. “...Is that why you didn’t want me warming you up with my hands earlier? ‘Cause it would have been like how I warm up the piglets?”

“Yes.” Thank God he’d gathered that, and seemed to understand. “I’m not saying I don’t want your hands on me, because that would be far from the truth, but the combination of cold and what you were about to do earlier would have sexualized something that I prefer to keep as wonderfully innocent as it is right now.”

Sid was smirking, but the shine in his eyes was all adoration. “Alright,” he agreed easily. “I promise to never hold your cock and call it a ham sandwich, no matter how cold it is. I’ll see what I can do about getting you in with the piglets. And,” his smirk grew teasing, “I promise not to tell anyone about your hand fetish.”

“...It probably does qualify as a fetish, doesn’t it?”

“I thought you were gonna eat my finger when I put it against your lips earlier. You sure looked like you wanted to. Not that I minded; just figured you should know what you like.”

Despite his embarrassment, Sullivan chuckled at Sid’s forthrightness. “I appreciate that. All three things, in fact.”

Later, when Sid had retrieved sausages and eggs from the lockbox he left outside as a makeshift refrigerator in winter and they were crammed back in at the table to eat, Sullivan broached the desire that had come to him two days before. “Sid?”

“Mmph?”

“...I would have been happy to wait for a response until your mouth was empty.”

He swallowed. “Running low on time.”

They were. Sullivan would have to go as soon as they finished breakfast. “I was going to ask...could we do this every year? Every Valentine’s Day?”

“Which bit? Can’t repeat all of it. I mean, how many times do you want to solve the exact same puzzle, or get the exact same key?”

Sullivan thought back over the story Sergeant Goodfellow had told him. Elements of his tradition had changed over the years, but the sentiment behind it was the same, and just as meaningful as ever. “It doesn’t have to be identical. But if we could have dinner, and halfway stay up all night together, then eat breakfast like this...it sounds very stereotypical, I realize, but...” But he wanted it, because with Sid, stereotypical was anything but.

“Nah. Sounds great. And next year, maybe Piggles will get a sibling.”

“...Piggles? No. Tell me you aren’t calling him Piggles.”

“His name is Piggles, and that,” he jerked his thumb over his shoulder to where the soft toy lay on top of his pillow, “is where he lives. Unless you’re here, in which case I’ll move him off the bed. Wouldn’t want to traumatize the little guy with what we do there. Or,” he laughed, “traumatize you by letting him see.”

“Well now he _has_ to get a sibling next year, so that at least one of them will have a less ridiculous name than Piggles. You can’t possibly come up with anything worse than that.”

Sid sipped his tea and sent Sullivan a wicked grin. “I can try. I’ve got a whole year to think.”

Sullivan grinned back, not surprised in the least by that response. “Whatever you call the next one, Sid...I’m sure it will be perfect.” After all, he finally understood, everything else about Valentine’s Day was, at least when you could spend it with the right person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't resist another Wodehouse reference in this chapter - Lord Emsworth's prized show pig is named The Empress - nor could I refrain from putting the word 'chonk' in Sid's mouth. It's a 21st-century term, but it feels like a word he would have embraced had it existed in his time.


End file.
